For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. – Deuteronomy 30:11, KJV

We like to complicate matters. It’s just our way.

Take, for example, the famous Acres of Diamonds story, popularized in the late 1800s and early 1900s by American Baptist minister Russell Conwell. Many since Conwell have relayed the story, and I first encountered it while listening to a recording produced by the late Earl Nightingale. Mr. Nightingale’s rendition of the tale goes like this:

The Acres of Diamonds story is a true one that is told of an African farmer who heard tales about other farmers who had made millions by discovering diamond mines. These tales so excited the farmer that he could hardly wait to sell his farm and go prospecting for diamonds himself. He sold the farm and spent the rest of his life wandering the African continent searching unsuccessfully for the gleaming gems that brought such high prices on the markets of the world. Finally, worn out and in a fit of despondency, he threw himself into a river and drowned.

Meanwhile, the man who had bought his farm happened to be crossing the small stream on the property one day, when suddenly there was a bright flash of blue and red light from the stream bottom. He bent down and picked up a stone. It was a good-sized stone, and admiring it, he brought it home and put it on his fireplace mantel as an interesting curiosity.

Several weeks later a visitor picked up the stone, looked closely at it, hefted it in his hand, and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he’d found. When the farmer said, no, that he thought it was a piece of crystal, the visitor told him he had found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered. The farmer had trouble believing that. He told the man that his creek was full of such stones, not all as large as the one on the mantel, but sprinkled generously throughout the creek bottom.

The farm the first farmer had sold, so that he might find a diamond mine, turned out to be one of the most productive diamond mines on the entire African continent.The first farmer had owned, free and clear … acres of diamonds. But he had sold them for practically nothing, in order to look for them elsewhere.

The moral is clear: If the first farmer had only taken the time to study and prepare himself to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state, and to thoroughly explore the property he had before looking elsewhere, all of his wildest dreams would have come true.

When it comes to discerning God’s will for our lives, we like to complicate matters just like the farmer did. We look everywhere else for clues while ignoring the acres of diamonds – the Bible and the Holy Spirit that dwells within us – that are before us in plain sight. As God Himself relates in Deuteronomy 30:10-14:

10 If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.

11 For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden [emphasis added] from thee, neither is it far off.

12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

God has given us His Word. God has given us the witness of His Holy Spirit. All we need do to enjoy the rewards of life that come from obedience to God is to do what the farmer should have done: take the time to study and to prepare to learn what God’s wisdom looks like.

Don’t look for God’s will using your human wisdom – or anybody else’s human wisdom, for that matter. Human wisdom will lead you astray. Instead, mine the acres of godly diamonds that you already have all around you. If you do, you will have exactly what Joshua 1:8 (KJV) promises:

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.